If it walks like an ad, and talks like an ad…
Reporter Tom Clouse questioned the appropriateness of the promo for the newly-redesigned 7 section. At first glance, he said, it looks like a news story, but contains clearly subjective praise for the new section without any indication of who wrote it.
Is it shameless self-promotion? Absolutely. We've done it before. However, there was some consensus that we probably should have set the promo apart visually to better emphasize the difference between promoting content and news.